Akornpatch
Well-Known Member
This comes from the NORML affiliates: ...just checked out his website, and this is what Dennis Kucinich has to say about the war on drugs:
Drug War
April 2006
My position on this issue is to face it directly, though other politicians run away from it. I agree with the many law enforcement officials and experts in the field that we must find a new way of dealing with illegal drugs.
I have studied the issue for decades and recognize that our "War on Drugs" has failed. In fact, because our War on Drugs drives up the price, it encourages violence. Prohibition simply doesn't work. It only creates thousands and thousands of Al Capones. Prison should be for people who hurt other people, not themselves. We don't jail people for merely drinking. We jail people when they drink and drive or hurt another human.
Drug use can and should be reduced. But a continuation of our current War on Drugs will not do it. Instead, the current policies have only helped increase drug use and foster violence across the country. California was able to cut teenage tobacco use in half with a straightforward ad campaign that was financed by a tax on cigarettes. Not a shot was fired.
The supporters of the drug war have only one solution to this debacle -- more money for law enforcement, more people, more power, more prisons -- with no end in sight. Of course, these happy drug warriors who justify their living hunting down drug users come on TV and promise us that they see light at the end of the tunnel. They promised us a drug-free America by 1995, and instead we see new and more exotic drugs constantly being added to the mix.
I know that proponents of the Drug War will say that I am pro-drugs. I am not. As mayor of Cleveland, I saw first-hand the damage done by addiction to drugs, including alcohol. I also witnessed that the wasted resources and collateral damage did not promote a safe society. It is unconscionable that only one bed exists for every ten people that apply for drug treatment. Our priorities and our resources are being put in the wrong place. The primary job of law enforcement should be protecting our country and its citizens -- not protecting people from themselves.
The shredding of our rights to privacy and property promoted by the Drug War is inconsistent with a free society. Criminalization of private or self-destructive behavior is not acceptable in a free nation.
The racism evident in the Drug War, and the clearly preferential treatment for offenders with connections, undermine our concept of a just society. Draconian prison sentences that dwarf those for violent crimes, like murder and rape, destroy respect for our laws.
The rampant corruption of the criminal justice system spawned by the $400 billion-a-year black market could be ended with the stroke of a pen. So also would be the wholesale devastation we have brought to other countries. Countries like Colombia, where we send billions of dollars of military aid and spray hundreds of thousands of acres of populated land with dangerous herbicides in a country with nearly a million displaced people. And each military campaign or spraying is like a squeezing a balloon; production merely shifts to another site or goes into a temporary hiatus.
Drug addiction is a medical and moral problem that should be treated by professionals, not dumped on the criminal justice system. Setting up a national commission of medical professionals to develop an intelligent program, based on the experience of drug experts from around the world, would be a first step. Allowing doctors to treat drug addiction humanely and intelligently, including the prescription of maintenance doses, would allow us to quickly eliminate most of the black market and much of the damage to a safe, free, and just America.
It is time for an honest dialogue on this issue. Time to stop the documented lies, half-truths, and propaganda that got us into this mess in the first place. It is time to face the facts.
Floor Statements, 109th Congress:
Don't Let the War on Drugs Become a War on Children
Drug War
April 2006
My position on this issue is to face it directly, though other politicians run away from it. I agree with the many law enforcement officials and experts in the field that we must find a new way of dealing with illegal drugs.
I have studied the issue for decades and recognize that our "War on Drugs" has failed. In fact, because our War on Drugs drives up the price, it encourages violence. Prohibition simply doesn't work. It only creates thousands and thousands of Al Capones. Prison should be for people who hurt other people, not themselves. We don't jail people for merely drinking. We jail people when they drink and drive or hurt another human.
Drug use can and should be reduced. But a continuation of our current War on Drugs will not do it. Instead, the current policies have only helped increase drug use and foster violence across the country. California was able to cut teenage tobacco use in half with a straightforward ad campaign that was financed by a tax on cigarettes. Not a shot was fired.
The supporters of the drug war have only one solution to this debacle -- more money for law enforcement, more people, more power, more prisons -- with no end in sight. Of course, these happy drug warriors who justify their living hunting down drug users come on TV and promise us that they see light at the end of the tunnel. They promised us a drug-free America by 1995, and instead we see new and more exotic drugs constantly being added to the mix.
I know that proponents of the Drug War will say that I am pro-drugs. I am not. As mayor of Cleveland, I saw first-hand the damage done by addiction to drugs, including alcohol. I also witnessed that the wasted resources and collateral damage did not promote a safe society. It is unconscionable that only one bed exists for every ten people that apply for drug treatment. Our priorities and our resources are being put in the wrong place. The primary job of law enforcement should be protecting our country and its citizens -- not protecting people from themselves.
The shredding of our rights to privacy and property promoted by the Drug War is inconsistent with a free society. Criminalization of private or self-destructive behavior is not acceptable in a free nation.
The racism evident in the Drug War, and the clearly preferential treatment for offenders with connections, undermine our concept of a just society. Draconian prison sentences that dwarf those for violent crimes, like murder and rape, destroy respect for our laws.
The rampant corruption of the criminal justice system spawned by the $400 billion-a-year black market could be ended with the stroke of a pen. So also would be the wholesale devastation we have brought to other countries. Countries like Colombia, where we send billions of dollars of military aid and spray hundreds of thousands of acres of populated land with dangerous herbicides in a country with nearly a million displaced people. And each military campaign or spraying is like a squeezing a balloon; production merely shifts to another site or goes into a temporary hiatus.
Drug addiction is a medical and moral problem that should be treated by professionals, not dumped on the criminal justice system. Setting up a national commission of medical professionals to develop an intelligent program, based on the experience of drug experts from around the world, would be a first step. Allowing doctors to treat drug addiction humanely and intelligently, including the prescription of maintenance doses, would allow us to quickly eliminate most of the black market and much of the damage to a safe, free, and just America.
It is time for an honest dialogue on this issue. Time to stop the documented lies, half-truths, and propaganda that got us into this mess in the first place. It is time to face the facts.
Floor Statements, 109th Congress:
Don't Let the War on Drugs Become a War on Children
This sounds like a great guy to vote into office.
